


I'm Dreaming, Aren't I?

by SomeoneOnThisWorld



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Episode Fix-It: s15e20 Carry On, Fix-It, Getting Together, Heaven, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-26
Updated: 2020-11-26
Packaged: 2021-03-10 07:15:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,119
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27729379
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SomeoneOnThisWorld/pseuds/SomeoneOnThisWorld
Summary: Not only is his Heaven a beautiful memory, but it is also a memory of a dream. He appears near a lake on a warm sunny day, with no one in sight for miles. Just him, the lake, and a chair perched on a small wooden pier, and fishing tools waiting for him. Oh, this was an old, old dream. This was an old, old memory.***A short Fix-it for Dean's arrival to Heaven. He arrives at a place he vaguely connects to one of his memoried, so he isn't aware that Heaven has changed into something better than the memory playbacks. And, of course, there's someone else in Heaven, who is just as clueless as him.
Relationships: Castiel/Dean Winchester
Comments: 20
Kudos: 102





	I'm Dreaming, Aren't I?

When he dies, Dean hopes for Heaven when his Reaper collects him. He hopes for a memory so sweet he would forget the rest of his long and winding life, and he knows that with Jack in charge, the kid will pick something spectacular for him.

And he doesn’t disappoint.

Not only is his Heaven a beautiful memory, but it is also a memory of a dream. He appears near a lake on a warm sunny day, with no one in sight for miles. Just him, the lake, and a chair perched on a small wooden pier, and fishing tools waiting for him. Oh, this was an old, old dream. This was an old, old memory.

He smiles softly as he sits down and throws the hook into the water. This is exactly what he needed, complete and utter peace. The perfect ending to a life full of hardship. And, because this was technically a dream that got turned into memory by a certain person interrupting this dream, he waits. He waits giddily.

A flutter of feathers behind him. His smile widens.

Finally, there is an angel with him in Heaven.

He tries to remember, which of them speaks first in this memory? Is it him? Is he the one who starts the conversation by realizing this isn’t a dream? Or is it him and his stupid greeting, which was still so cold when this memory took place? Dean wonders if Jack would make Cas sound fonder here.

He waits. And Cas waits, just as silently. They definitely didn’t wait this long in his dream to speak, did they? Cas had come to disturb his dream with an important message after all. Is Heaven forgetful? Or is it playing the memory out by how well Dean remembers the memory himself?

“Hello, Dean.” Despite his array of questions, he can’t help but smile at the voice. It doesn’t sound quite right, doesn’t quite fit the memory. It was almost like Castiel was supposed to say something different, but … the human mind is unreliable. There is a possibility that he doesn’t remember the conversation correctly.

He definitely doesn’t remember smiling. Perhaps Heaven tailors memories to make them feel happier.

“Heya, Cas,” he tries saying, testing the waters, and smiles wider at the sense of control his own voice is giving him. He eerily remembers beginning the conversation differently in his memory. _I’m dreaming, aren’t I?_ he was supposed to ask, disappointed at the disturbance of peace. Cas was supposed to answer with an urgency that it was not safe for them to talk here. And they’ve already changed the rules. Perhaps Heaven is tailoring his memories to be happier than they actually were.

Still, he decides to let things run their course.

“I’m dreaming, aren’t I?” he repeats the line like an actor performing on a stage, just to have Castiel answer him, talk to him, give him a sign that he is still close.

“It’s not safe here,” Castiel says slowly. Strange. He remembers him being tense in this memory, speaking as if they were both in need of running and hiding from something invisible. This Cas sounds the way Dean would want him to sound now – calm and gentle, and ever so slightly confused. “Someplace more private …”

Damn it. Jack really outdid himself here.

“More private?” he asks, his grin shaping the words to sound flirty. He looks over his shoulder to finally look at the angel. He looked different than he remembered him from the dream – more recent, if that was possible, with a newer tie and in a different trench coat. As if Heaven replaced the memory of then-Castiel with the Castiel he had to say goodbye to way too soon. “We’re inside my head.”

Castiel looks down on him with a puzzled frown that Dean has grown so stupidly fond of. Yet something is out of place. Castiel is looking back at him the same way Dean looked at him – as if he was expecting a different Dean, twelve years younger and with a deeper scowl.

“Exactly,” he finally says. “Someone could be listening.”

Here is where Castiel is supposed to reach into his pocket and produce a piece of paper, an address Dean is supposed to meet him outside the dream. However, he doesn’t make a move. He simply stands there and keeps frowning, as if he’s forgotten his next line.

Well, Dean thinks, either Heaven is lagging or it’s giving him some space to work through his own shit. He waits a second and it looks like Castiel is also waiting for the next move, so he waits another second just to take him in. God, how he misses him. How he loves him.

“Or,” he says, finally going completely off-script as he stands up, not taking his eyes off Castiel. “Maybe we could talk right here. I’ve got something to tell you, asshat.”

Castiel's frown deepens and he leans his head to the side.

“You don’t call me an asshat here,” he simply says. The blunt way with which he says it stings slightly. It sounds so much like him, and yet it’s so mechanical, automatic, that it sounds like Heaven itself being displeased with him not cooperating.

“No, I don’t,” Dean says, pursing his lips in determination. “Which means I at least have enough free will here to say what I wanna say. Even if it isn’t the real you. I have to say it or else it’s gonna kill me all over again.”

Heaven squints at him through Castiel’s eyes.

“What-”

“I love you, too, you dumbass son of a bitch,” Dean cuts it off. Tears are gathering in his eyes, but he doesn’t even try to blink them away or wipe them off, too intent on keeping his gaze fixed on Castiel as he says this. And has to say it, finally get it off of his chest before he can finally move on in this sad excuse for a Heaven. “And I can’t believe you didn’t even let me … you didn’t even let me say it back, Cas. You just- you just left.”

Castiel looks shocked, mouth hanging open as he stared frozen in place, speechless. Dean wonders idly if Jack is on the other side of this, manipulating it all at the back of his mind, and the shock on Castiel’s face is Jack’s own. The poor kid had no idea about his and Cas’ relationship, after all. At least not to this extent.

“You know, I was angry when you left. So angry,” he continues, the words spilling out of him on their own accord. “And I didn’t want to be, because it was the one thing I know that’s the only thing that ever upsets you, but I was. I was angry at you for telling me right before you sacrificed yourself for me again, angry at myself for not being able to stop it, or … or at least say something. Let you know that you were just as loved. Because you were. You are. And, fuck, it’s been twelve years, Cas! Twelve goddamn years. Why did you have to say it at the very end? Why couldn’t you say it here, in this memory, at the very beginning? You had me here already, even if I still had my head stuck so far up my ass back then. You could have me now, too, if you weren’t just a piece of shit memory that I’m stuck with now.”

Castiel doesn’t move up until the last sentence, which seems to hit him like a truck. He exhales as if the air was forced out of his lungs, his eyes widen.

“Dean,” he says, and it’s a sigh of relief and an accusatory scold at the same time. “Dean it’s … it’s _you_ , isn’t it? The real you.”

“Yeah?” Dean says, frowning. It’s his turn to be confused now. “Who else would I be?”

Instead of answering, Castiel leaps forward, catching Dean in the biggest, tightest hug. Dean’s arms come around him automatically; he doesn’t know what exactly is going on but, man, it’s good to enjoy having Cas in his arms again, even for a short while. He almost doesn’t want to let go, greedy with his desire for comfort, and only begrudgingly lets go when Castiel pushes away again to glare at him.

“What _the hell_ are you doing here already?” he growls and this, right here, is when Dean gets it.

Heaven would never be this angry with him for dying.

“Cas?” he asks, uttering his name so delicately that one might think it would break. “It’s … it’s you? Really you?”

“Of course, Dean.”

“You’re not …”

“Jack got me out. And some other angels that have died over the years. He needed all the help he could get rebuilding Heaven to his wishes,” Castiel explains. His glare never softens. “Why are you dead? You weren’t supposed to be here yet.”

Dean chuckles.

“Well, damn, Cas,” he jokes. “It almost sounds like you’re not so happy to see me.”

“I’m not happy you’re dead.”

“Yeah, well,” Dean shrugs with a soft laugh. “I kind of got screwed. Literally.”

Castiel doesn’t laugh at the joke. Either he doesn’t get it or he doesn’t think it’s funny. The lack of response lets them settle into silence, though, one of the weirdest, tensest ones that they have ever been stuck in. Caught between admiration for one another and regret, and happiness and sorrow, and love, love, love. Both of their confessions are out in the open now, for the first time in forever, and by the looks of it, neither knows what to do with it.

“So,” Dean says awkwardly, looking around to avoid Castiel’s intense gaze. It has shifted into recognition of the love profession and Dean can barely handle it. He feels naked, standing there with his heart so open. So he finds it best to change the topic. “How is this possible? How are we even talking like this right now? I thought Heaven is supposed to just be a passive string of happy memories.”

“Jack changed it,” Castiel says. “He decided that humans deserve more free will in their afterlife. He redesigned Heaven to create a peaceful eternity after death, where people can do whatever they want with their free time. You were brought here, I assume, for some peace and quiet before Jack took you to your family that’s waiting for you. And, I assume, he sent me to you because he wanted me to know you are here already.”

“Why did you play along when I thought that this was a memory, then?”

“I thought it was my own memory,” Cas says and has the audacity to look embarrassed. “Jack decided I, too, deserved some peace after everything. So he placed me here. Only I asked him that I want to relive some of my favorite memories before committing to the free will afterlife. The Empty is not very kind with the dreams she sends the angels, and I wanted to remind myself of how I came to love the world.”

“So you wanted memories of me?”

“You were the one who taught me to love. I wanted to remind myself of that.”

“That’s kind of gay, dude.”

“You literally just confessed your undying love for me.”

And there it was. Dean thought he’d be more awkward when confronted with what he has just said, but instead, a sense of calmness overtakes him. He smiles.

“That I did,” he says. “What are you gonna do about it, angel?”

Castiel steps forward, cautiously reaches out to take Dean’s hand in his, and the soft touch evaporates the last bit of worries and doubts from the back of Dean’s mind. They are here. They are real. They are in love.

“I think I’d like to spend some time enjoying this,” he says, his smile growing wider as Dean steps even closer to him. They lock eyes as Dean brings their hands to his face and kisses Castiel’s. “For the first time, I feel like we’ve got the time to just be.”

“Hm, I think I’d like that, too,” Dean murmurs, eyes darting to Castiel’s lips but in no rush to move towards them yet. They’ve got time now. They can drag every moment out into eternity.

Castiel, however, is less patient – or braver, maybe. He closes the gap between them in a soft kiss and Dean melts against him. This feels right. He doesn’t believe there has ever been a kiss that felt more so.

“I love you,” Castiel murmurs against his lips, like a promise, like a prayer. Dean smiles.

“And I, you, Cas.”

**Author's Note:**

> So. I picked that dream scene from season 4 (episode 5 or 6 I think) where Cas comes to Dean while he's fishing in his dreams for this. Because obviously, this isn't a memory and just the scenery set up for his peaceful arrival to Heaven, but I wanted to make it vague enough and simple for them both to think they're in a memory.
> 
> (Also, I kind of wanted to make a parallel to their beginning versus their ending hahah)
> 
> I hope you liked it!!
> 
> P. S. – a quick note: if you like my writing, I also write original short stories and poetry, and I share most of my work on Instagram (username: @shit_shewrote) if anyone would like to follow me for more of my work!! Any and all support would be greatly appreciated!!


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